The invention relates generally to communications between industrial equipment and, more specifically, to a wireless communication network for control of industrial equipment in harsh environments.
Welding-related devices, such as the welding wire feeders, welding torches, welding helmets, welding control pendants, welding foot pedals, and so forth, are often operated at welding locations that are remote from sources of power, such as welding power supply units. For example, such remote welding locations may be up to, or even greater than, 300 feet from a source of power. As such, long cables are often extended to such remote welding locations, which can become very cumbersome. Moreover, in certain welding applications, such as ship building applications, a number of remote welding locations may be used at any given time in relatively small areas, thereby exacerbating the problem of extending cables to these remote welding locations. Furthermore, the use of wireless communication technologies in such environments has heretofore proven problematic, at least due to noise considerations (which generally hamper wireless communication), security considerations, and so forth.